Peter's Little Peter

Where's Waldo's Peen?

It doesn't take long for the next shoe (peen) to drop. As usual, John Wayne High School has canceled whatever scheduled learning was to take place during third period to hold a pep rally for the football team. Apparently, they're playing some crosstown rival that we're all supposed to hate for some stupid reason. 

Anyway, we don't get much of a pep rally before another peen steals the spotlight. As we file into the gym to begin the rally, a familiar sound overtakes the usual chatter. There's laughing and shrieking, and yelling. It's another peen, I'm just not sure where.

Everyone's looking up at the rafters, so I look up at the rafters. For a moment, all I see are the various banners signifying John Wayne High School's football achievements. Then I notice that one of the banners isn't quite like the other ones. It's the same maroon and gold color, but something is different. Very different. Just like the flag from this morning, the banner has a dick pic just above the words "free the peen."

Principal Boone and the other administrators begin barking at us to exit the gym immediately. But asking teenagers to turn away from the sexual humiliation of a peer is like asking a dog to give up her bone. 

I look over and see Coach Krieger trying to swipe at the banner and pull it down with a mop handle. But just like his sex-ed classes, Coach Krieger's attempt to pull down the banner is a stupid and futile gesture because the banner is fifty feet above the ground, and the mop handle is only about six feet long.

Nearby Coach Krieger, I see the football team. They're laughing, not at the banner, but at one of their teammates. Thor, the football player who apologized to me earlier is red with embarrassment. But unlike on the football field, where Thor knows exactly where to place his body for maximum carnage, he looks lost. He's stumbling around, uncertain if he should join  Coach Krieger's futile efforts, or blend into the crowd.

Except, Thor can't blend into the crowd. It's his peen up on that banner. And as his teammates point and laugh at him, it occurs to me that they recognized his peen. It could've been an anonymous peen, but they outed him. They must've seen his peen a million times in the locker room, but the minute they saw it here, in public, with everyone in school laughing and giggling, they turned on their teammate. They probably didn't even think about it. In a millisecond, they processed the fact that someone else's peen was being served up for the amusement of the crowd. They thanked their lucky stars that it wasn't them, and then they proceeded to distance themselves from the humiliation the way teenagers always do, by making fun of the other person.

I feel bad for Thor. I've literally been in his shoes. And while he was part of the crowd that Nick Spears led against me, I don't feel good about him getting a taste of his own medicine. In fact, as the crowd begins to chant, Thor, Thor, Thor, I feel sick. Because in that moment, I see the mighty Thor, a man-child who crushes other men-children, begin to cry. The more he cries, the louder the taunts get. Then finally, Thor can't take it anymore. He runs from the gym, knocking over a trio of cackling meme girls. 

In that instant, I realize that there are no winners here. We are all losers. What goes around comes around, but as it comes around, it exposes us for what we really are. Each of us, regardless of our status at school, is a cruel instrument. We thrive on the pain of others because when that pain is exposed and served up for entertainment, it makes us feel like we're not alone. And we are not alone. We're part of a large, terrible thing that feeds off the pain of people like Thor, people like Elroy, people like me, and even people like Nick Spears. We're part of a large terrible thing that will devour each and every one of us, if we don't stop it.

But as I look around the gym, I don't see any appetite for stopping this menace. What I see is a crowd hungry for more. And now that Thor has left the building, their chant has changed.